High power lasers are extensively used in industrial and military applications, and their powers are ever increasing. The laser power levels used for industrial applications currently exceed tens of kilowatts, while the levels for military applications approach hundreds of kilowatts. In some applications, such high power lasers are used on mobile platforms. In the near future, the laser power levels are projected to exceed one megawatts. A general overview of high power laser systems and relevant technologies can be learned in a monograph entitled, “Handbook of High Power Lasers” McGraw-Hill, April 2011 by Injeyan and Goodno. Accordingly, in the existing art, these applications require laser power calibration systems and optics testing facilities that are equipped with the lasers capable of delivering such high power levels. Generating such powers is extremely costly, requires large facilities, and can be hazardous to laser operators.
Using such high power lasers for their calibration and for testing associated optics is cost inefficient, requires large facilities and hazardous. Therefore, calibration and optical testing systems of reduced cost, foot print and operation hazard have been sought for. In some applications, the high power lasers are operated on mobile platforms and need on-site characterization of high power laser propagation through atmosphere as presented in “Absorption and Scattering of an HEL Beam by Atmospheric Aerosols”, HPLA and DE Symposium, Santa Fe, N. Mex., 2016 by Fischer et al. The realistic characterization of such high power lasers propagation would require full-power operation of the lasers themselves, thus can be highly costly and hazardous to operators. Therefore, high power laser characterization systems for beam propagation, which can be cost-effective and highly portable, have also been sought for.